Rhino Poaching Soars Along With Demand for Horns

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The poaching of rhinos for their horns has risen dramatically
over the last year and a half, conservationists report.

These crimes are fueled by demand for African rhino
horn from the Asian market, where it can fetch more
than $30,000 a pound ($60,000 per kilogram).

Africa is losing a rhinoceros every other day. South Africa,
which holds more than 80 percent of the continent's rhino
population, has been losing at least 20 rhinos per month.

"Within South Africa's
national parks - not counting private land there, where
poaching was rare - there were 10 rhinos poached in 2007," said
Matthew Lewis, senior program officer for African species
conservation for the World Wildlife Fund. "Thus far in 2010
alone, more than 200 rhinos were poached within South Africa,
with a lot of those poached outside national parks, so that's a
more than 2,000 percent increase in just three years' time."

The horns might weigh 6.3 to 8.1 pounds (2.9 to 3.7 kilograms) on
average. Bits of crushed horn are a prized ingredient in
traditional Asian medicines.

The crisis in Africa

Two species of rhino are native to Africa, while three are native
to southern Asia. Of the two African species, the white
rhinoceros is near-threatened, and the black
rhinoceros is critically endangered. Some 4,000 black rhinos
and 17,500 white rhinos are all that keep Africa's rhinoceros
population from extinction.

Hundreds of thousands of rhinos once roamed throughout Africa.
Now highly organized international groups of illegal hunters are
using helicopters and deploying technologies including
night-vision scopes, silenced weapons and drugged darts to find
and kill these giants.

"We're up against the emergence of really high-tech poachers,"
Lewis said. "This tactic of using helicopters and veterinary
drugs on darts has really only come out in the last six months to
a year. It really points to organized crime."

Greed and nonsense

Most rhino horns leaving southern Africa are destined for markets
in Asia, especially Vietnam, where demand has escalated in recent
years.

"A lot of that has to do with how Vietnam's economy has grown
astronomically," Lewis said. The country's newly affluent middle
and upper class seems to be seeking rhino
horn as some kind of miraculous remedy, he said, although its
traditional use in Chinese medicine is for fevers and nosebleed.

Rhino horn is made from keratin, "from compacted hair, a very
similar substance to the hooves of a horse or a cow, or a
person's own fingernails," Lewis said. "Taking rhino horn has the
same effects as chewing on your fingernails: no medicinal
properties whatsoever."

With prices that high, there's also the prospect "of creating
anything and calling it rhino horn," Lewis said. "People can
throw in all kinds of crazy things, and it could actually be very
dangerous."

Trouble in Asia

Asian rhinos, which generally have smaller horns, seem to be less
of a target for poachers. Still, two of the three Asian rhino
species, the Javan and Sumatran rhinoceroses, are critically
endangered at populations of 40 and 400, respectively, Lewis
said, and only 2,400 or so Indian rhinoceroses remain in the
wild.

"They were nearly wiped out 100 years ago, and they're hanging on
by a thread," Lewis said. "Indian rhinos have much larger horns
than the other two Asian species, and we've seen escalation to
their poaching similar to Africa in the past three or four
years."

"We have to raise awareness and get on top of this," Lewis
concluded. "Rhinos could go extinct in our lifetime as a result
of this if awareness isn't raised." He hopes increasing public
awareness about the plight of rhinos could spur a crackdown on
the criminals who buy and kill for these horns.